Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

cfenollosa.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 567 posts

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#111

Post by xuki »

SCdF wrote: post #81

> By the way, not including the extension cord is unacceptable. This cord is not only a convenience, but it increases safety, because it's the only way to have earth grounding for the laptop. Without it, rubbing your fingers on the surface of the computer generates this weird vibration due to static. .... THAT'S WHAT THAT IS? I have wondered for _years_ why my laptop sometimes feels that way. Another mystery solved!

I’m not sure if it’s solved. I used to use the UK plug which always has 3 pins, short or long, and I still get that sometimes.

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#112

Post by worble »

ubercow13 wrote: post #71
fuzzy2 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows (the technology) is okay. Not good, but okay. Windows (the experience) degrades every day. Everything is slow even though the specs are good. Granted, corporate “additions” like O365 ATP don’t help and aren’t part of the core system. But many users have to bear with them nonetheless. And have you looked through the diagnostic data Windows sends? That cannot be turned off without hacks? They get live notificat…

>Everything is slow even though the specs are good Have you tried running without antivirus? Some parts of Windosw are still slow eg the filesystem, but the main thing making everything slow is antivirus software IME, including Defender.

This is such a huge pain, I keep having to turn off the antivirus because it will often slow "npm i" so much that it'll just fall over and report a crash. I shouldn't have to disable my built-in antivirus just to do basic development!

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#113

Post by carlesfe »

buro9 wrote: post #66

Just got my first MBP. Found problems with USB devices on day 1 with USB 2.0 devices intermittently freezing. Documented https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/gp5b1z/usb_20_issues_o... , and there is a workaround... do not use any hub that shows a USB 2.0 device to the Mac, find and use a USB-C hub that presents everything as USB 3.0 to the Mac even if it's USB 2.0 I believe that this is a Catalina software bug, and…

THANKS so much! I was experiencing this same issue!

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#114

Post by LUmBULtERA »

georgyo wrote: post #54
pachico wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an xps 13 bought 5 years ago. I'm getting also around 8-9 hours of browsing time if I occasionally open YouTube. Quite more if I only code and don't spawn docker apps like databases. Spoiler, I use Xubuntu with CPU frequency set to power save but again, I've used this laptop massively during around 5 years already.

My four year old XPS lasts an entire 10 minutes on battery doing nothing at all. Though when I got it, it very easily lasted the entire day, even if watching videos and such.

Replace that battery, it's an easy process!

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#115

Post by vegardx »

mrweasel wrote: post #58
HugoDaniel wrote: post #17

I have the new 16 MBP and love the touch bar. I find it much easier to change brightness/sound (place the finger and drag); I find it much easier to control apps, like music, safari, and all, and the habituation period was shorter than with the keys back in the day (when i started using macs). I would love to be able to easily customize the touch bar though, the author mentions BetterTouchTool, looks good, might be w…

If Apple had two versions of their laptops, one with the touch bar and one without, I feel pretty confident that the version with the standard F-keys would outsell the touch bar. I mentioned this before, but the real proof that the touch bar isn't for professionals is that you can't buy an Apple keyboard with the touch bar. Local labor laws require that I have a "external" keyboard when working at my desk, so the tou…

Or could it be that it just pulls too much power for a cordless keyboard? There can't be much room for batteries in those keyboards.

If the non-TouchBar one was cheaper then I guess you'd be right. But all else equal I imagine people would want it. I quite like it, of all the things that have been wrong with the previous lineup of Macbooks, the TouchBar really isn't one of them.

However - the way Apple implemented the TouchBar leaves much to be desired. You need something like BetterTouchTool or MTMR in order to make it usable.

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#116

Post by pachico »

georgyo wrote: post #54
pachico wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an xps 13 bought 5 years ago. I'm getting also around 8-9 hours of browsing time if I occasionally open YouTube. Quite more if I only code and don't spawn docker apps like databases. Spoiler, I use Xubuntu with CPU frequency set to power save but again, I've used this laptop massively during around 5 years already.

My four year old XPS lasts an entire 10 minutes on battery doing nothing at all. Though when I got it, it very easily lasted the entire day, even if watching videos and such.

Sad to hear that. But yes, once the battery is replaced you'll get again a more than decent laptop. Mine has 8gb of ram, which is still enough for most of what I do, including running VMs and docker compose intensively.

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#117

Post by pachico »

tuesday20 wrote: post #101
pachico wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must disagree with you. I have been installing Linux for people who barely know how to use a mouse and the experience was always successful. Of course, I choose a distro with simple UI and software with GUI every time. I don't want to get into the typical "if my mom gets it everyone can" (also because she is a power user) but trust me, the people I installed it for had the same problems they would have had with any…

What is your preferred distro?

It's been Xubuntu for almost a decade, I think. I tried Lubuntu but, at least at the time, it had no pulse audio which wasn't great. I tried Budgie but it has some paper cut bugs that I couldn't live with (some might).

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#118

Post by losvedir »

Very interesting post. I actually have been feeling almost the opposite lately.

My work laptop is a 2017 MacBook Pro, and a couple months ago I dusted off my old personal laptop, a Mid-2013 MacBook Air to work on a side project.

The thing that blew me away is the Air feels a lot snappier! I honestly don't know what it is, and think I must have done something to my work laptop. I notice it most with VSCode, which seems to respond with less latency to interactions than on the Air.

I was idly thinking about upgrading the machine to the newest Air, but I'm sort of worried that whatever slowness is infecting my 2017 Pro might also apply to the new Airs. I'm not really a hardware guy but could it be, like, a different sort of SSD or RAM or something?

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#119

Post by rbanffy »

humbfool2 wrote: post #18
rafamvc wrote: post #6

Wsl 2 is incredible. Got a 1000 dollars dell desktop and it is insanely faster than my Mac. Windows has improved a lot, and Linux based development on windows is a lot easier now. 5 years ago I would have quit a job if they asked me to use windows. Macos is still marginally better but not worth the cost IMHO.

I moved to Windows after 5 years of Mac this month. Because I knew I will be working from home, decided to build a good workstation (Thank you Ryzen ) and I Couldn't agree more WSL is very helpful for people who like windows UI and functionalities of Linux. There are few quirks but it works great.

My Linux setup is usually like this, but inside out. When I need Windows functions (which is not often), I fire up a VM (either with VirtualBox or KVM). WSL makes Windows useful for Linux development (my software will run on Linux, not Windows), but the rest of Windows is usually a bit of a pain.

I usually find the text less readable on Windows than it's on Linux or a Mac. Not sure it's an issue with Edge, my monitor's Gamma or what, but it just looks better on Linux (and perfect on a Mac).

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#120

Post by pachico »

_fullpint wrote: post #98
pachico wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must disagree with you. I have been installing Linux for people who barely know how to use a mouse and the experience was always successful. Of course, I choose a distro with simple UI and software with GUI every time. I don't want to get into the typical "if my mom gets it everyone can" (also because she is a power user) but trust me, the people I installed it for had the same problems they would have had with any…

I attempted to but the driver support just wasn’t there for my laptop. WSL2 works fine and it also means that when I want to game I have a wider selection of games to play.

Yup, I'm not a gamer anymore and when I was I used a PS, true.

Anyhow, my target initiating Linux to wasn't precisely gamers either.

Post reply on HN